Ahmadinejad's visit will help boost India-Iran ties

New Delhi: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to stop over in New Delhi on Monday for a few hours.

The visit will be watched keenly not only in India but the rest of the world, particularly the United States.

With the India-US nuclear deal slipping into limbo, the Manmohan Singh Government has sensed the importance of reaffirming its ties with Iran, both to placate its Leftist allies opposing the deal and as a pragmatic alternative source of energy for India.

With the decks cleared for the construction of the US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, Delhi is now focusing on the pricing issue with Tehran and transit fee with Islamabad to get the $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India pipelines off the ground.

This could prove crucial for the country's energy security if the nuclear deal does not get through.

India also wants to put back on track a floundering $25 billion deal for getting 5 million tonnes a year of LNG from Iran for the next 25 years.

With natural gas reserves of 26 trillion cubic metres and 130 billion barrels of oil, the importance of Iran for India's energy security cannot be overstated.

As this will be his first meeting with Ahmadinejad, who came to power in August 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to assure Iran that despite India's vote against Tehran at the IAEA first in September 2005 and then in February 2006, the ties between the two countries are not hostage to the whims of any third country.

Ahmadinejad may seek the help of India, whom it sees as a rising Asian power and as a friendly interlocutor in its nuclear standoff with the West, knowledgeable sources said.

Cooperation

Other areas of cooperation and shared interests like the stability in Afghanistan, counter-terrorism and creating a co-prosperity sphere in Central Asia, where both countries are observers at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), will also be on the table, official sources said.

Cooperation in infrastructure projects like Chabahar port and a rail link that links up with the larger Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) project that will provide added connectivity for Indian goods and services on its way to Afghanistan and Central Asia will also be discussed.

"Ahmadinejad's visit is an opportunity for India at course correction and put its relations with Iran back on solid footing after the vote against Iran at the IAEA," said Qamar Agha, an Iran specialist who has taught in various universities, including Jamia Millia Islamia.

"Friendly ties with Iran are important for India. Given incestuous alliances between militants the world over, any instability in the region can spill over into Indian territories like Kashmir," Professor A.K. Pasha, a West Asia expert at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said.